Comment: The management consulting industry experienced remarkable growth up to the year 2000, with steady increases of 15-20 per cent per year. Profit margins also swelled, due to more complex projects and diversification into new service areas, such as outsourcing. Yet with the arrival of the new millennium came a significant downturn, fuelled by events such as the dotcom bust, the 9/11 attacks and resultant economic recession, and the Enron scandal.

Despite this slump, signs of recovery have recently emerged to set the industry back on its feet, such as expanding Asian markets, and continued demand for outsourcing solutions. And despite slower growth by 2004, total revenues for the global industry skyrocketed to approximately $150 billion (€120.5 billion), compared to just $2 billion in 1980, with the worldwide number of consultants estimated to be pushing one million.

This impressive track record hints at the consulting industry's global impact. Across industries, management consultants have driven innovation in management practice, helping clients adapt to a rapidly changing business environment, and seize upon the opportunities presented by global markets.

Here in Ireland, consultants are helping Irish-based organisations to make the most of business opportunities in China, working on both sides of the globe to facilitate new business relationships. Worldwide, management consulting firms have improved the performance of thousands of companies and public agencies, and become a major employer for business graduates.

At the same time, however, research carried out by Market & Opinion Research International (Mori) in the UK shows that the reputation of the management consulting industry has been in steady decline. Executives often use consultants by necessity, not by choice. Most would prefer to use in-house expertise, yet due to years of downsizing, they feel that such resources are lacking internally.

So what can Irish companies do to ensure that they are getting the best possible service from their consultants? The first step is to recognise the common misuse of management consultants.

One particularly misguided approach to consultants is to see them as the short road to competence. Here, companies view engaging an external consulting team as the easy way to access key skills and knowledge. Rather than investing time and money to develop capabilities within the organisation, they come to depend on teams of external experts. But the short road quickly becomes the long road, as this cycle of dependency grows and intensifies.

Another common mistake is when consultants are used to rubber stamp decisions already taken by management. Such external approval, even after-the-fact, is seen to lend credibility to company decisions and those who support them, and are often used as a means (albeit an expensive one) of political point-scoring.

What's more, some executives use consultants as corporate hand-holders. For those managers who lack confidence in their own decision-making ability, consultants can be a welcome source of guidance and reassurance. Similarly, managers who consider themselves too busy looking after their day-to-day responsibilities to contribute sufficient time and energy to strategic issues, may look to consultants to engage in management-by-proxy.

Similarly, consultants are often viewed as promotion insurance by managers interested in climbing the corporate ladder. For them, the fastest route to upward mobility is to equip themselves with business recommendations gleaned from a consulting firm.

Does any of this sound familiar? If this is how you traditionally use consultants, you are not alone in doing so. However, by holding such basic views, your organisation is missing out on truly valuable and effective consulting engagements. Here are some suggestions as to how your company can get real value from consulting teams.

Use consultants to enhance and challenge your current way of thinking. They are an excellent source of additional business and industry knowledge, and their fresh eyes can provide you with new ideas and ways of looking at data.

Consultants make great doers as well as thinkers. Use them to help with the execution and implementation of decisions already made by the management team, to roll out a management development programme, or put your new manufacturing process into action.

Furthermore, consultants are independent eyes and ears. Use them when you need impartial facts, especially in situations where insiders may receive biased information. Consultants' outsider status can be pivotal in obtaining sensitive information from employees, customers and other key stakeholders.

Finally, due to their expertise and practical experience, consultants make excellent preachers and teachers, injecting new ideas and techniques into your organisation. An excellent consulting team ensures the transfer of skills into the client organisation to improve management capability, and to diminish the culture of dependency (or ideally prevent it from taking hold in the first place).

When used to their full potential, management consultants are an invaluable business resource. Over the years, consultants have made significant contributions to management expertise and greatly advanced the cause of professionalism in management.

Here in Ireland, the buoyant consulting market is good news: not only are the world's top consulting firms represented here, but there is also a variety of highly skilled small to medium-sized consulting firms and independent practitioners who can assist Irish companies in virtually any area of business.

But selecting the right consultants is only the first step. In order to create the conditions for a truly valuable consulting engagement, it is essential that your organisation understands not only when to use consultants, but, more importantly, how to use them.

Kathleen O' Reilly is the programme director of the new diploma in management consulting at Smurfit School of Business, UCD.